BJP goes aggressive in media buying, invests Rs 15 crore

It’s election time and political parties are on a mission to communicate with the mass. Tracking the media buying activities of political parties turns increasingly interesting. And BJP has left no stone unturned to ensure that its message is rightly conveyed to the people. The saffron brigade has lined up Rs 15 crore for its media spends for the elections, industry sources inform.

Prachar and Crayons – the two media agencies are working out the most effective strategies for the party to ensure perfect communication with the people. And, Bhajpa seems rigid in not compromising on the cost factor.

As per Ajay Singh, BJP Campaign Coordinator, the media buying for the party is divided between Prachar and Crayons with selective responsibilities. “We have a message to communicate and we want it done in an appropriate way and through the right mediums. Prachar is taking care of television and radio for us and Crayons is handling the print space and other mediums,” he says.

On its part, the media agency is aware of the gravity of its task. Rajesh Jain, MD, Prachar, says: “It is very important for us to guarantee that BJP gets the required visibility. We have ensured that it has the loudest share of voice in this category. Our media plans are meeting 150 commercials for 15 days, so you can imagine the kind of work that is buzzing in our offices currently.”

Explaining more about the utilisation of the mediums, he adds: “Target being 18 to 34-year olds, in TV we have taken spots in every space that gives us a critical mass of this TG. Of course, the skew is largely towards DD but apart from that we have STAR Plus, Sony, Zee, all news channels, even channels like MTV, Channel V, ETC, B4U and others. For radio, we have taken only AIR.”

As part of its campaign, the BJP has also sponsored various programmes like Zee Thursday premiers, an initiative that no other political party has indulged in, claims Jain. “The feedback that we have seen even in areas like Chattisgarh and Rajasthan has been very positive, showing that the campaign has worked,” he says.

On the print side, Singh explains that the focus has been mainly on Hindi and regional press. These spends are for a 15-day-period ending on May 10, 2004, post which all activities will be discontinued.

Dwelling on the campaign objective, he says: “We have to tell people the importance to have a stable government at the centre. Vajpayee has given a good government and he should be given another five years. Lots have happened in the past five years and people need to be told about that. And, there’s a lot more to be done and people should be informed about that as well. Our creatives for all communications are designed in-house to ascertain that this message is conveyed.”

However, the party has utilised different kinds of ads for the purpose. “We have used testimonies, recorded messages from the Prime Minister, 15-seconders reflecting the achievement in certain areas like road building, gas connection and so on,” Singh explains. According to him, the party has taken professional help for shooting the ad films from various agencies like Grey Worldwide.